Page 81 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

Much of our knowledge of Han architecture is derived from the
reliefs and engravings on the stone slabs lining tombs and tomb
shrines. In crude perspective, they show two-storeyed gateways
flanked with towers and often surmounted by a strutting phoenix,
symbol of peace and of the south. The reliefs from the Wu family
shrines in Shantung show a two-storyed house in whose kitchens
on the ground floor a banquet is in preparation, while the host en-
tertains his guests on the piano nobile above. The humbler dwell-
ings—farmhouses, granaries, even pigsties and watchmen's
huts—survive in the rough and lively pottery models made to be
placed in the tombs.
Never in Chinese history, indeed, was so much care lavished on
the tomb and its contents as in the Han Dynasty. Huge numbers
have survived and every day more are revealed. They arc interest-
ing not only for their contents but also for their structure, which
varies considerably in different areas and provides us with almost
the only surviving remains of Han architecture. They are not, of
course, representative of Han building as a whole, nearly all of
which was carried out in timber; the more adventurous tech-
niques of the dome and vault in brick or stone were reserved al-
most exclusively for the permanent mansions of the dead. In the
Chinese colonies in Korea and Manchuria, tombs were square or
rectangular with flat roofs of stone slabs supported on stone pil-
lars, or shaped like clusters of beehives with corbelled brick
vaults. Tombs in Shantung were also of stone, sunk in the ground,
while before them stood stone shrines, tz'u, for offerings to the
spirits of the departed. An elaborate example of a Shantung tomb,
discovered at I-nan, is laid out as if for a living occupant, with re-
ception halls, bedrooms, and kitchen. In Szcchwan most of the
tombs are small barrel-vaulted structures built of bricks on the in-
ner face of which a lively scene was stamped in relief, though at
Chiating deep tomb shafts were cut into the cliffs in groups with a
common vestibule carved out to suggest a timber building. The
tombs of the Ch'u people of central China, whose culture under-
went a considerable revival during the Han, were either deep pits
containing layered timber coffins, or rectangular chambers some-
times vaulted in brick.